The former leader of the Liberal Democrats has hit back at a Daily Mail article which he claims misrepresents his view on Brexit.

Lord Paddy Ashdown, who served as MP for Yeovil between 1983 and 2001, was reported about on the national newspaper's website, MailOnline.

The article referred to Mr Ashdown's appearance at the Hay Festival, claiming that he "criticised Remoaners for failing to understand that those who voted to leave Europe are ‘just as patriotic’ as them."

The article also branded his comments a "Nazi smear", due to a comparison he made with present politics and the 1930s.

The article appeared on MailOnline (Image: MailOnline)

Mr Ashdown, who led his party between 1988 and 1999, has now responded that his comments were nothing to do with Brexit.

He said: "My speech at the Hay Festival was about the world situation, it was not about Britain or Brexit. But the Daily Mail took it and made something totally predictable out of it.

"The speech was essentially a version of a speech I gave in the House of Lords earlier this year during a debate on populism - which is available on Hansard [the official record of all UK parliamentary business] for anyone to read."

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The speech in question, which Mr Ashdown delivered in the House of Lords on January 19, gave a clear warning against abandoning liberal values, but did not explicitly mention Brexit.

The opening section stated as follows:

There has never been a successfully sustained government, a prosperous age or an age of peace that was not founded on liberal values.

If we part company with those values, what inevitably follows is conflict, division and tyranny.

I am particularly struck by the comparison between our age and the 1930s. Then, following a recession and a failure in politics, there was a massive collapse in confidence in the political system and the establishment.

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Then too, people wondered whether democracy was failing and hungered for the government of strong men. Then too, multilateralism gave way to unilateralism and, indeed, to a surge in nationalism. Then too, as we remember, free trade withered away and protectionism was on the rise.

It was also an age when vulgarity always succeeded over decency and when the ugly voices were heard, listened to and followed far more than the quiet voice of reason.

It was an age when many of us found it convenient to blame the ills that we were suffering from on the stranger in our midst or the foreigner over the border.